Autumn

Zelda 

by Louisa Harding in Luzia

.... went through a massive Luzia phase a while ago which is a knitting special effect that also happens to be of high quality - you don't often find that.   I've been using up scraps because  we've suddenly been pitched into scarf weather here - seems fitting though, because I've always viewed the Dublin Theatre Festival (still a full week to go) as one of the many fruits of Autumn.

Some performances are living on with me in a good way - and I know they'll stay with me in a good way  (this, by the way, is my definition of best).   One was What Happens To The Hope At The End Of The Evening, in which Andy Smith describes his home place in a deceptively simple story telling manner. Tim Crouch is the friend from youth come on a visit and what evolves is, amongst other things, a treatise on the attitudinal perils of aging...funny, cleverly understated - especially visually - and periodically menacing too.

I also liked  Perhaps All the Dragons very much - the set is beautiful - very spectacular, and all the more so when in the equally lovely Smock Alley banqueting hall.  Audiences physically enter an oval wooden skeletal structure in which are mounted thirty video screens with a numbered wooden chair in front of each.  The audience takes seats randomly, the person on screen begins to speak about his or her life and, when finished, invites you to take a card with directions to four further numbered appointments - meaning you will have had a total of five and one short of six by the end (which becomes significant!).  Everyone switches station simultaneously and in any one show nobody seems to get precisely the same experience.  All videoed encounters seem entirely natural and personal, although they're prerecorded and not interactive.

 My first "meeting" was with a Japanese bonsai cultivator who explained the principles of his art. My next was a meteorologist from Moscow who manipulates clouds to fend off rain for major political events.  Then I got a low caste Indian who acts as a god in annual religious ceremonies.. I got a Brazilian sociologist who explained that, no matter how unlikely or far flung the connection, on average anyone can reach anyone else in the world via a series of six contacts. My final visit was with an Israeli surgeon who by day performed life saving operations on patients including a Palestinian child from Gaza, and by night worked as a fighter pilot who had bombed targets in Gaza.  

Occasionally throughout the performance communal disruption occurred - a lady with a refreshment trolley seemingly moved her wares from screen to screen; sometimes a person on one screen seemed to chat with the occupant of the next. A fully costumed opera singer broke into a few bars from Bizet's Carmen, and a boy with a baseball cap kept calling out loudly - interrupting all other "conversations".  These distractions briefly united the full complement of audience and players.

This was a really interesting, innovative and entertaining production - if you want to see all stories for yourself, you can, here - the code for that part of the site is bravery.

Fairisle Meditations

In about a hundred years or so, when I've finished this project, I expect I’ll have plenty to say, but as I’m only at the start of a very long knit I'll save that for then. Rightly or wrongly, I’ve decided to stick with my own fairisle system which is closer to two-finger typing than to any more streamlined method. This is not something I’ll be whipping out when I'm bored at the cinema - I need space - space, and a place I can concentrate and line up all my yarns exactly as I need them.

But that ordered approach gives time not just to enjoy the colour but to think too, and this week my thoughts are running on theatre shows I've seen the day or night before.  The Dublin Theatre Festival is in full swing and I find that fairisle is very conducive to post theatrical unscrambling  - for instance while working on the green chains, I established exactly why I didn't like something I'd seen, and teased out if my reason was my own prejudice, or if there was something more objectively wrong.  But much more importantly, I also worked out what I like   - and if anyone's interested, and if you can still get a ticket, here are a few of my favourites so far...

...  A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing -

Really one of the most nuanced, impressive and memorable performances I ever saw; the language is stream of consciousness and would be challenging, were it not for Aoife Duffin's total assumption into the role. The subject matter is child neglect and sex abuse - from the first second nobody moved in their seats other than awkward shunting at some of the really distressing aspects. Her performance doesn't seek to shock or explain - it just does.  I heard someone complain a day after (few could speak a word in the direct aftermath) that the content was nothing new - for me that makes it all the more haunting and pertinent.  If I had the gift of an overall award, this production would win (unless there's something better next week, but as I haven't seen anything so good in years, I really doubt that).  I've seen Aoife Duffin perform before, but I'm really glad I got to see her in this, which I know will go down in the annals of "remember the year that..."

... After Sarah Miles…

Bobeen is an epically disastrous man made flesh by Don Wycherley - and anyone who ever spent time in a small coastal town will have met a Bobeen.  The writing is beautiful and the performance held us spellbound = on the night I was there, they deservedly won one of those rare, entirely spontaneous, unselfconscious unanimous standing ovations

I loved Zoo and its initial lightness of touch - made its political message all the more compelling.

...Hello, My Name Is was funny, great fun too - it wears its messages lightly and allows you to attach as much (or little) significance as you like to its agenda.  It's very much a festival show, and be prepared to seriously participate (and also maybe limber up a little first because it's a very energetic event) -  I had to give a knitting class.

...Adishatz/Adieu only on in Dublin till Saturday 4th October  - all I can say is GO!  Poignant and shocking, out of the box and off the wall - everything that festivals should be about!    

Nearly Made It...

Stanza

by Sarah Hatton from Rowan Knitting & Crochet Magazine No. 56

in Mohair Haze 

Aoife liked this pattern, so I got knitting right away for her birthday and belatedly for her success in graduating as a BSc.  This is a really interesting yarn worked on 3mm needles.  It's 70% mohair and 30% wool and knits into a fine and springy fabric which really does have a haze-like sheen.  You need to be careful, though, especially in reverse stocking stitch because every little glitch will be visible (to the knitter at least!).  However, it doesn't make me sneeze for which I am grateful because I don't always fare so well with mohair or angora.

And I was making great progress until I ran out of wool...  for the last few balls I had a sense that this was a likely scenario, but just clacked on in hope until there was no more...  (do a tension square?) (me?!) So my new order's in and more wool's on the way... apparently...  but it's been almost a week now and still no sign. Aoife's birthday has come and gone and now I'm growing despondent. Knitting a lot - especially in white -  can unhinge you slightly - I know that:  you keep your hands very clean and anyone wandering about with plates of food or, god forbid, a pizza box becomes a potential foe - so perhaps it's no harm to take a break. 

Congratulations and best wishes to Aoife on all her achievements - the present indian summer is a fitting back drop for all her causes to celebrate (along with the fact it's not quite sweater weather yet).   

Post script - 2 x 25g of wool finally arrived and I've no idea what's happened my tension, which is generally there or thereabouts, but I needed both.  Daytime photo is at the top of this post and thanks also to Milla of The Stitch Shop for sewing it up and covering over some of my mishaps  -  not for the first time too.